Personal Profile Name: Wang Xiaozhang (王小张） Age: 38 Gender: Male Occupation: Teacher Social Class: Middle Class Financial situation: Not sufficient. Barely enough to buy food everyday. Low wage. Appearance: 175cm / 56kg / short hair(Queue) / likes to wear formal clothes Location (**map**): Nanking (Map is wrong) Habitual locations: Usually at school with my students. My house is located near the ocean. Daily routine: Wake up at 7am - Walk to school which is located at the center of Nanking - School starts at 8am - Lunch time at 12pm - ends at 2pm - leaves school at 6pm - buy food on the way home - arrives home at 8pm - dinner at 8:30pm - read book until 10:00pm - sleeps at 10:30pm Personality/Quirks/Unique Personality Traits: I am a very hardworking teacher who loves teaching little kids; I am currently teaching elementary students at 'Feichanghao Xiaoxue'. I also love reading books and exercising my body. I always walk home from school and walk school from home everyday except on Sundays; it is about 7km. I hate other people telling me what to do. I want them to acquiesce whenever I try make any decisions. I live alone in my tiny small house but it is all good since I do not really spend a lot of time at home. The food that I eat are in a very abysmal condition. Past/individual-family history: As long as I know, both of my parents died. My father was an adroit shoes man and my mother was a great cook. They were very bright even during this severe adversity. My grandfather was a warrior. Family: I actually have a younger brother who I could not see for several years. He abruptly went out of my house and never came back; he did not even tell me why and where he was heading. Social relations with your own and other classes (people you deal with or know about in other classes, AND your opinions and feelings about them): I am indeed a very polite and mature man who is very nice to kids and to elders. However, I am a mysterious dual-minded man who gets extremely angry whenever someone else do anything that I exorbitantly hate and I do not even know what I will do to him(sometimes very kind but sometimes very acerbic). I am a very isolated man who does want to socialize because I want to live a quite life. Religion: Buddhism & Confucianism Education: Fully educated when I was young. My father who was an adroit shoe maker earned sufficient money. Portrait:'top of the page'
Diary #1: Calm Before Storm December 8th, 1937 - 9:38am (Wednesday)
This is unbelievable... Japan declaring war on us? If the news that I heard is true, the war that will transpire will be the second Sino-Japanese War. I have faith in my own nation's army but versing Japanese troop will be a very tough fight for us. One pretty depressing fact is that when they really come over to our nation for a war, Nanking, my hometown, will be the first one to be attacked (It was not the first to be attacked...Did you read R.O.N.?). It had been a several weeks after the declaration of war but we are not seeing any of Japanese in our nation. They might be coming to Nanking through Shanghai right now... all the people around me are leaving the city and they have reached the acme of fear and depression. I demand the government to send army to Nanking right now because I am pretty sure that they will be here in less than a week. The school that I go and teach has been closed for a month now. I miss my students and I feel very lonely right now because I do not have any other people to be with and to rely on.
Compared to the pictures that I have depicted in my head, the town that I live in is unnaturally quite and empty. I bet I am the only one who did not leave the town by now. I should have left with the family next door. These days, I feel more depressed at the callous life condition of mine; I want my parents back who gave me warmth and comfort. I would have to stop thinking back at my early life memories and start packing up my stuff and leave immediately. It would be very fortunate to meet people on my side on the way out of Nanjing and I hope the Japanese army does not reach Nanjing or another month... no, in fact I do not want them to put their dirty feet on the proud land of China, my mother country. Diary #2: A Knock at the Gate December 9th, 1937 - 10:48pm (Thursday)
The Japanese troops have finally entered Nanjing. They are here for a 'war' but it seems as if they are here to take advantage (of) our poor and weaker national military. The war has begun. The movement of people running away from the area where the Japanese armies are approaching are getting faster. Japanese are stupid and violent; they are brainless murderers. They even killed the foreign people who were inhabiting in Nanjing.I am currently hiding in a deep bushes on a huge hill; I can see some of the Japanese from here. They are killing all the people they see and they do not seem regretting or feeling any sympathy for the Chinese. Their acrimonious behaviors have scared all the people with me. We have decided to run further away to the opposite side from where the Japanese are coming. I cannot receive any kind of news from the outer world these days.
Some groups of people, who are all in the same situation as me, and I are moving away from Nanjing running away from the Japanese following the Grand Canal. Grand Canal will lead us to the cross-section with the Yellow River and eventually near to Beijing. We planned to go to Beijing since they will have the strongest army in China with great defense (Beijing was taken over by the Japanese right at the beginning of the war. That's why Nanjing was attacked; it was the 'Southern capital'. The capital city was moved to Chungking. Again, did you read R.O.N.?). However, we are praying everyday that the war to end soon with the China's victory. In addition, if we need any of our troops with good news with them, we might be going back to our home Nanjing; that has a very low possibility to happen.
Coincidently, I hate met my students whom I teach at my school here in the hill. The little boys were all scared and tired. They were not even clear what was happening to their country. What a sad destiny for them to experience all these tragic happenings in their early life... as an adult I feel ashamed and sorry for not making a beautiful world for them.
Despite the adversities that my nation and I are experiencing right now, I have no doubt in the fact the we will be all OK and knock down Japan and smash them in their face. The life day by day these days are very sad and I sometimes feel as if I want to kill myself due to all the fears that I am experiencing now. It became a daily life waking up aghast because of the loud Japanese soldiers near us. I hear about General Tang Sheng-Chih the great general of China who must be working very hard making strategies up to save all the innocent people of Nanjing. I hope a messenger send my the government comes to Nanjing with a positive cheerful news on hand.
The days when I were with my parents, the day I first became a teacher, the first day at school as a teacher–these are all the days that I think out as I walk to Beijing. Good old days... Diary #3: The Gates Coming Tumbling Down December 21st, 1937 - 11:29PM
Are we humans? Yes we are defiantly humans. But are 'they' humans? No. They are bunch of 'Abel-born' monsters convicting crime everywhere they go. I wonder what is the adjunct of their brains are; they are worse than the uneducated beasts living in safari. What a botch of the pitiless God creating those inhumane humans. Do we deserve this massacre? Do we deserve this treatment? Is this our destiny?
I am actually thinking both fortunate and unfortunate to be survived all the time until now. The fortunate part of being alive is that I can still seek for the micro-tiny hope or miracle that will happen to us; the weak Chinese army is making the hope diminish more and more. The unfortunate part of not being killed by now is that I have to live in extreme horrifying conditions where bombs and guns never stop making sounds. Derogatory Japanese are being more cruel and cruel day by day... brutal Japs... Everyday I live a day which has a high possibility to be the last day of my life.
You know what is making this calamity worse? It is cold winter winds and snows that freezes us. We did not even bring much blankets and winter clothes; we were just busy saving our lives and who would have thought that this war would last this long?
We are still walking along the river(which makes us feel more cold). We divided up into three different groups and gave some intervals between each of the groups just for safety and the group ahead always gives us the sign of 'danger' or 'safe'. We had couple of dangerous moments nearly facing the Japs. I heard from the very last group that joined us about a week ago that the Japanese troops are stealing all the things we had at our houses and they are raping, killing, executing innocent Chinese people; some people are even getting buried alive... This makes me feel so angry so that I would bomb all of Japan if I had the power.
Do you know what I really want to do right now? I really want to hold up a party with all of my past students and the people that I knew in the past including all of my villagers. I especially want to meet John Tsui who was by favorite and best student about ten years ago.
Diary #4: Through the Gates into Hell December 25th, 1937 - 4:53PM
This is getting worse and worse. Everywhere I go, I see dead human bodies. My blood pumps deadly fast from my heart whenever I go across the corpses. However, the irony that none of our group members actually facing the Japanese military and getting attack left us a ambiguous conspiracy of their plan. We felt both 'relief' and 'fear'. If there were miracles existing on this Earth, the thing that happened to me today should be called a 'miracle'. I still do not believe who is next to me right now... JOHN TSUI... I wrote that I really wanted to meet him about five days ago and it really happened to me. When we first faced each other, none of us could recognize each other. He changed from his top to bottom in terms of his outer appearance and I got much older too! However, one very good thing that helped us think of the old days... the old memories was that everything stayed the same excluding our appearance. We talked for hours and hours... but in the end we finished with a glommy depressing mood because I brought up the topic of how much I hate this world and those Japanese acting like drunken monkeys out there... I bet he thought of this the same way as me...(we had great similarities since very young). I feel like we should have not disconnected amity for such a long time... he is such a great young boy.. or I should say a great young man! Now I have another reason why those Japs should leave this country... around me, there are so many great people who have goals and dreams that they want to achieve... and I really want all of them to accomplish those goals. They should leave IMMEDIATELY.
Diary #5: A Survivor June 18th, 1970 - 8:12PM
First... I thank all the gods on this Earth for saving my life from the Japanese military...
It has been about thirty-three years since the last diary that I wrote on the day I met my old student. How did I spend my one-thrid of a century? Well, the Japanese occupation lasted for about one more decade. It was terrible. We started to have nothing to eat and we were very tired of all the violent noises, news, and sights... it was like living in a real hell.
About three years ago, bunch of newspaper reporters came to my house asking if they can interview me for the Nanjing Massacre incident that happened when I was 38 years old(I am now 71 years old). They asked many questions and I was quite happy to sacrifice my time for them fulfilling their needs. It was because the reporters coming to my house asking questions about the sad past history symbolized the Chinese people again giving attentions to the forgotten history once again.
I am still angry at the Japan. I am pretty sure that all the Chinese who were involve in the sad history would hate them as well. It is because they are not giving any apologies to us. Unless the selfish dumb Japanese government give abrupt apologies to all the participants of the Nanjing incident, I think I will die hating the Japanese.
Chinese government should reward all the people who died and who still has some kind of mental disability with a reasonable reward. I do not want any really big things... I at least want to live without any financial concerns in my head...
I think this will be my last diary of my life... I do not know when I will die and I know that I will die very soon. My body is not like before when I was young; it is weak, not listening to my orders, and I am losing my focus various times in a day...
Video: The Pulse: Looking back at the Ninjing Massacre
Personal Profile
Name: Wang Xiaozhang (王小张）
Age: 38
Gender: Male
Occupation: Teacher
Social Class: Middle Class
Financial situation: Not sufficient. Barely enough to buy food everyday. Low wage.
Appearance: 175cm / 56kg / short hair(Queue) / likes to wear formal clothes
Location (**map**): Nanking (Map is wrong)
Habitual locations: Usually at school with my students. My house is located near the ocean.
Daily routine: Wake up at 7am - Walk to school which is located at the center of Nanking - School starts at 8am - Lunch time at 12pm - ends at 2pm - leaves school at 6pm - buy food on the way home - arrives home at 8pm - dinner at 8:30pm - read book until 10:00pm - sleeps at 10:30pm
Personality/Quirks/Unique Personality Traits: I am a very hardworking teacher who loves teaching little kids; I am currently teaching elementary students at 'Feichanghao Xiaoxue'. I also love reading books and exercising my body. I always walk home from school and walk school from home everyday except on Sundays; it is about 7km. I hate other people telling me what to do. I want them to acquiesce whenever I try make any decisions. I live alone in my tiny small house but it is all good since I do not really spend a lot of time at home. The food that I eat are in a very abysmal condition.
Past/individual-family history: As long as I know, both of my parents died. My father was an adroit shoes man and my mother was a great cook. They were very bright even during this severe adversity. My grandfather was a warrior.
Family: I actually have a younger brother who I could not see for several years. He abruptly went out of my house and never came back; he did not even tell me why and where he was heading.
Social relations with your own and other classes (people you deal with or know about in other classes, AND your opinions and feelings about them): I am indeed a very polite and mature man who is very nice to kids and to elders. However, I am a mysterious dual-minded man who gets extremely angry whenever someone else do anything that I exorbitantly hate and I do not even know what I will do to him(sometimes very kind but sometimes very acerbic). I am a very isolated man who does want to socialize because I want to live a quite life.
Religion: Buddhism & Confucianism
Education: Fully educated when I was young. My father who was an adroit shoe maker earned sufficient money.
Portrait: 'top of the page'
Diary #1: Calm Before Storm
December 8th, 1937 - 9:38am (Wednesday)
Compared to the pictures that I have depicted in my head, the town that I live in is unnaturally quite and empty. I bet I am the only one who did not leave the town by now. I should have left with the family next door. These days, I feel more depressed at the callous life condition of mine; I want my parents back who gave me warmth and comfort. I would have to stop thinking back at my early life memories and start packing up my stuff and leave immediately. It would be very fortunate to meet people on my side on the way out of Nanjing and I hope the Japanese army does not reach Nanjing or another month... no, in fact I do not want them to put their dirty feet on the proud land of China, my mother country.
Diary #2: A Knock at the Gate
December 9th, 1937 - 10:48pm (Thursday)
The Japanese troops have finally entered Nanjing. They are here for a 'war' but it seems as if they are here to take advantage (of) our poor and weaker national military. The war has begun. The movement of people running away from the area where the Japanese armies are approaching are getting faster. Japanese are stupid and violent; they are brainless murderers. They even killed the foreign people who were inhabiting in Nanjing.I am currently hiding in a deep bushes on a huge hill; I can see some of the Japanese from here. They are killing all the people they see and they do not seem regretting or feeling any sympathy for the Chinese. Their acrimonious behaviors have scared all the people with me. We have decided to run further away to the opposite side from where the Japanese are coming. I cannot receive any kind of news from the outer world these days.
Some groups of people, who are all in the same situation as me, and I are moving away from Nanjing running away from the Japanese following the Grand Canal. Grand Canal will lead us to the cross-section with the Yellow River and eventually near to Beijing. We planned to go to Beijing since they will have the strongest army in China with great defense (Beijing was taken over by the Japanese right at the beginning of the war. That's why Nanjing was attacked; it was the 'Southern capital'. The capital city was moved to Chungking. Again, did you read R.O.N.?). However, we are praying everyday that the war to end soon with the China's victory. In addition, if we need any of our troops with good news with them, we might be going back to our home Nanjing; that has a very low possibility to happen.
Coincidently, I hate met my students whom I teach at my school here in the hill. The little boys were all scared and tired. They were not even clear what was happening to their country. What a sad destiny for them to experience all these tragic happenings in their early life... as an adult I feel ashamed and sorry for not making a beautiful world for them.
Despite the adversities that my nation and I are experiencing right now, I have no doubt in the fact the we will be all OK and knock down Japan and smash them in their face. The life day by day these days are very sad and I sometimes feel as if I want to kill myself due to all the fears that I am experiencing now. It became a daily life waking up aghast because of the loud Japanese soldiers near us. I hear about General Tang Sheng-Chih the great general of China who must be working very hard making strategies up to save all the innocent people of Nanjing. I hope a messenger send my the government comes to Nanjing with a positive cheerful news on hand.
The days when I were with my parents, the day I first became a teacher, the first day at school as a teacher–these are all the days that I think out as I walk to Beijing. Good old days...
Diary #3: The Gates Coming Tumbling Down
December 21st, 1937 - 11:29PM
Are we humans? Yes we are defiantly humans. But are 'they' humans? No. They are bunch of 'Abel-born' monsters convicting crime everywhere they go. I wonder what is the adjunct of their brains are; they are worse than the uneducated beasts living in safari. What a botch of the pitiless God creating those inhumane humans. Do we deserve this massacre? Do we deserve this treatment? Is this our destiny?
I am actually thinking both fortunate and unfortunate to be survived all the time until now. The fortunate part of being alive is that I can still seek for the micro-tiny hope or miracle that will happen to us; the weak Chinese army is making the hope diminish more and more. The unfortunate part of not being killed by now is that I have to live in extreme horrifying conditions where bombs and guns never stop making sounds. Derogatory Japanese are being more cruel and cruel day by day... brutal Japs... Everyday I live a day which has a high possibility to be the last day of my life.
You know what is making this calamity worse? It is cold winter winds and snows that freezes us. We did not even bring much blankets and winter clothes; we were just busy saving our lives and who would have thought that this war would last this long?
We are still walking along the river(which makes us feel more cold). We divided up into three different groups and gave some intervals between each of the groups just for safety and the group ahead always gives us the sign of 'danger' or 'safe'. We had couple of dangerous moments nearly facing the Japs. I heard from the very last group that joined us about a week ago that the Japanese troops are stealing all the things we had at our houses and they are raping, killing, executing innocent Chinese people; some people are even getting buried alive... This makes me feel so angry so that I would bomb all of Japan if I had the power.
Do you know what I really want to do right now? I really want to hold up a party with all of my past students and the people that I knew in the past including all of my villagers. I especially want to meet John Tsui who was by favorite and best student about ten years ago.
Diary #4: Through the Gates into Hell
December 25th, 1937 - 4:53PM
This is getting worse and worse.
Everywhere I go, I see dead human bodies. My blood pumps deadly fast from my heart whenever I go across the corpses. However, the irony that none of our group members actually facing the Japanese military and getting attack left us a ambiguous conspiracy of their plan. We felt both 'relief' and 'fear'.
If there were miracles existing on this Earth, the thing that happened to me today should be called a 'miracle'. I still do not believe who is next to me right now... JOHN TSUI... I wrote that I really wanted to meet him about five days ago and it really happened to me. When we first faced each other, none of us could recognize each other. He changed from his top to bottom in terms of his outer appearance and I got much older too! However, one very good thing that helped us think of the old days... the old memories was that everything stayed the same excluding our appearance. We talked for hours and hours... but in the end we finished with a glommy depressing mood because I brought up the topic of how much I hate this world and those Japanese acting like drunken monkeys out there... I bet he thought of this the same way as me...(we had great similarities since very young). I feel like we should have not disconnected amity for such a long time... he is such a great young boy.. or I should say a great young man!
Now I have another reason why those Japs should leave this country... around me, there are so many great people who have goals and dreams that they want to achieve... and I really want all of them to accomplish those goals. They should leave IMMEDIATELY.
Diary #5: A Survivor
June 18th, 1970 - 8:12PM
First... I thank all the gods on this Earth for saving my life from the Japanese military...
It has been about thirty-three years since the last diary that I wrote on the day I met my old student. How did I spend my one-thrid of a century? Well, the Japanese occupation lasted for about one more decade. It was terrible. We started to have nothing to eat and we were very tired of all the violent noises, news, and sights... it was like living in a real hell.
About three years ago, bunch of newspaper reporters came to my house asking if they can interview me for the Nanjing Massacre incident that happened when I was 38 years old(I am now 71 years old). They asked many questions and I was quite happy to sacrifice my time for them fulfilling their needs. It was because the reporters coming to my house asking questions about the sad past history symbolized the Chinese people again giving attentions to the forgotten history once again.
I am still angry at the Japan. I am pretty sure that all the Chinese who were involve in the sad history would hate them as well. It is because they are not giving any apologies to us. Unless the selfish dumb Japanese government give abrupt apologies to all the participants of the Nanjing incident, I think I will die hating the Japanese.
Chinese government should reward all the people who died and who still has some kind of mental disability with a reasonable reward. I do not want any really big things... I at least want to live without any financial concerns in my head...
I think this will be my last diary of my life... I do not know when I will die and I know that I will die very soon. My body is not like before when I was young; it is weak, not listening to my orders, and I am losing my focus various times in a day...
Video: The Pulse: Looking back at the Ninjing Massacre
Bibliography